Dear Clara!

Kristina Emikh (born 1992) is a writer and psychologist. Her debut novel “Dear Clara!” was written at the “Peredelkino” residency.

Viktor and Klara live in the capital of the ASSR of the Volga Germans. Viktor is from a Russian family, Klara is a Volga German. They study in the same class, but Viktor doesn’t dare to approach and start a conversation. So he writes Klara a letter… A novel about a tender feeling that time treated brutally—in 1941 Klara’s family, just like other Germans, was evicted from their native places. And again Viktor’s letters to Klara, only, alas, they don’t reach her. This is a novel about how to keep faith and light in yourself despite the most severe trials.

“Clara and Viktor’s conversation will last their whole lives; sometimes—in the absence of the addressees: they will speak with each other through their diaries. Even the most terrible events don’t pause life. Everyone who doesn’t die will grow up, and love will remain the same. That is the main thing: love stays.” (Maria Lebedeva, writer, literary critic).

“It is an impeccable mechanism: the long hand counts days, the short hand—years. Kristina Emikh tells the story of love during repressions and wars in the form of an epistolary novel. It reads like a thriller—you wait for a terrible ending with each year-turn, but the author is kind both to us and to the heroes.” (Anna Shipilova, writer, producer, and director).